


268. 3 a.m.

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [181]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 20:46:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9090094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Sarah has nightmares on the way back from Mexico. Helena tries to help. The key word here is "tries."





	

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: reference to character death]

The world is freezing cold, outside of S’ borrowed van, and Sarah’s feet land with a crunch in the frozen grass when she steps out of the passenger seat. S hadn’t brought a tent, for some reason, so the three of them – Siobhan, Sarah, Helena – have had to make do in the van on the way back from Mexico. Helena got the whole backseat, because of the babies in her belly. She’d offered to share it. Sarah had firmly declined.

She knew she’d be awake, anyways. She hadn’t slept right in ages. She keeps having these – dreams, sharp and vivid and sour like wine on her tongue. Mostly they’re nightmares. Actually: they’re _all_ nightmares. So here she is, three in morning, walking in circles around the van and hoping it will somehow lull her back to sleep.

Holy _shit_ , it’s cold. Sarah exhales, long, to watch her own breath plume in front of her; she keeps walking. She’s shaking. It’s nice, that it’s just because of the cold.

Around and around and around and hey, remember the look on Paul’s face at the end, remember the stubble where he hadn’t shaved, remember the bloom of blood through his thin t-shirt, remember the explosion and the dust and Rudy’s blood snaking through a tube and that Castor boy dead on the ground and remember waking up in the desert in the first place with the taste of sand heavy on the tongue and the utter certainty that no one was coming—

There’s a click that sounds like a gunshot and Sarah jumps, bites down so hard on her lip she tastes copper – she doesn’t have a gun, and she’s going to die. Remember Rudy’s footsteps through the barn, the sing-song taunt. Mommy? Mommy? Remember the fear in Kira’s eyes and guess who put it there, guess who’s fault it is, Kira bleeding from the car accident Kira’s chest still Kira the blood on Paul’s shirt—

“Sarah,” says a voice, quiet and creaking with sleep, and Sarah shudders full-body and tries to bring her brain back. She can’t. It’s like trying to bring down a whale with just one harpoon: it won’t go. Her thoughts snap like twigs in the pre-dawn dark.

“Sarah,” says the voice again, insistently. “Where are you.”

“The desert?” she tries, voice wavering. She blinks. She isn’t in the desert. Slowly the details come trickling back: they’re in the states, one of the square ones in the middle. Mostly woods. Bitterly cold – she’s stopped shaking, which probably isn’t good.

“Wait,” she says. “Uh – Kansas?”

The answer she gets: “I don’t know. Maybe? I think maybe.”

Sarah runs both hands through her hair, and looks at Helena. Because of course it’s Helena, woken up in the backseat, sitting with her feet dangling out of the open door. She blinks at Helena. Helena blinks back.

“I think it’s Nevada,” Sarah says.

Helena blinks a few more times, seemingly confused. “Is that real?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah says. She’s suddenly exhausted. “Go back to sleep, we’ve still got a whole lot of travel left.”

“What’s wrong,” Helena says, completely ignoring her.

“Nothing.”

“Is it Paul?”

“It’s _nothing_ , Helena, go back to sleep.”

“It’s okay,” Helena says, rubbing at her eyes with a curled-up fist like a child woken from an afternoon nap. “He is gone now. You can forget about him.”

Sarah twitches, full-body. “What?” she says. “I’m not gonna – I’m not gonna _forget_ him, Helena, Jesus Christ. He gave up his bloody life for me, you know that?”

“Yes,” Helena says. Her eyes are completely blank. “But when people die they are gone. And if you think about them it hurts, and for nothing, because they are not even ghosts. They are—” (she makes a sort of _pwft!_ sound by blowing air through her lips) “gone. Bye bye. You have to keep living, because they do not live for you.”

“So, what,” Sarah says, irritable in a way that’s easy and familiar and rising in her chest, “all the people you killed, they’re just—” She mimics the _pwft!_ sound, spitefully. It feels like kicking a puppy; Helena looks very earnestly confused. It feels good.

“Yes,” Helena says. “I tried to remember them, when I was very young, but it hurt. So I stopped. I don’t – remember. Any of them. Anymore.” Her eyes skitter away out into the dark. Evidently she is just now realizing that this might be a bad thing.

“You’re—” _a bloody psychopath_ , but Sarah chokes that down. The one word lingers in the dark, bitten-off and sharp.

“I’m sorry,” Helena says quietly. “I thought that it would help. To make yourself not remember. I thought that was what you were supposed to do.”

“It’s not.”

“Oh,” Helena says. She gnaws on her lip. Sarah keeps on saying nothing. “Sorry,” Helena says, like a plea.

“I’m – _I’m_ sorry,” Sarah mutters. She runs her hand through her hair. “I didn’t mean to – shit. I don’t know. It’s all these bloody nightmares, I can’t – can’t even sleep.” She shuts her eyes, tight. “I bet you don’t even have them, do you.”

She can hear, in the silence, the sound of Helena shaking her head. _No_.

“’Cause you move on.”

“Is it bad?” Helena whispers.

“I don’t _know_ ,” Sarah says, irritation throbbing in all of her vowels. _I’m not your bloody moral compass_ , but she swallows that down too. Says instead: “I don’t know.”

“If I remember,” Helena says, her voice the only real thing in the dark, “I never stop. I spend always thinking about bad things. Screams. Blood. I think some of them begged, only I don’t think about it. I sing to radio. I eat. It doesn’t matter anymore.” She pauses and then says it again, desperate. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Think it does,” Sarah mumbles. She keeps her eyes shut. She wishes she could explain. But if Helena doesn’t get it, after all this time, Sarah doesn’t know how to make her understand.

A warm hand on her arm; Sarah opens her eyes. Helena is leaning out of the van to put her van-warm sleep-warm palm on the edge of Sarah’s jacket. “It can matter tomorrow,” she says earnestly. “You’re cold.”

“He’s dead,” Sarah says.

“I know,” Helena says, and she pulls Sarah towards the van.

“It was my fault,” Sarah whispers, the second she’s inside – like it’s only now that they’re inside the van that there’s a chance that Siobhan could hear them.

“Shh,” Helena says, instead of _it wasn’t_ , or _I forgive you_ , or _it’s okay_. Maybe this is the only thing she knows: making it quieter and quieter until it’s gone.

Helena lies down on the backseat. There isn’t enough space for Sarah, but she lies down there anyways. Helena is very warm. They don’t have a blanket, but Helena is so warm. Sarah presses her nose to Helena’s neck. Helena’s pulse is still beating. So is Sarah’s. Is that something to feel guilty about? Is that something to be forgiven for?

She realizes it, just now, what she’d wanted to say: _If I don’t remember him, who will? Who’s going to carry it? Any of it?_ But it’s too late. She’s falling asleep already, cold and shaking and uncomfortable in the back seat of the van. She opens her mouth to say _Helena_ , before she goes, but by the time the _hh_ falls out from between her lips she’s already gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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